Critical Essay by Helge Norman Nilsen

In the following excerpted essay, Nilsen argues that protagonist Neil Klugman in Roth 's Goodbye, Columbus, separates from his lover to affirm his own identity.

In Goodbye, Columbus the protagonist, Neil Klugman, is involved in a struggle to develop and preserve an identity of his own amid different environments and conflicting impulses within himself. Throughout the story he makes love to Brenda Patimkin and tries to find a role in society that corresponds to what he regards as his own, unique self. In the process he loses Brenda, but he refuses to compromise and surrender what he regards as his integrity. As a result of this he remains mainly a detached observer in relation to the various settings and role...